The Exodus Decoded (History Channel)

Filmmaker Simcha Jacobvici offers a spirited notion of where and when the Biblical Exodus took place. If his grasp of the facts seems a bit lacking, his enthusiasm for the subject more than compensates for the scholastic doubts raised in this presentation.

Jacobvici takes the approach that evidence of the Exodus is literally "staring us in the face" and that musty Biblical and archeological scholarship has prevented us from understanding what happened. Much of Jacobvici's theories rely on rewriting history - he pronounces the Exodus took place in 1500 BC under the reign of the Pharoah Ahmose, and he even produces the monarch's mummy from a shelf in the Cairo Museum. He links the ten plagues that cursed Egypt with disruptions caused by the Santorini earthquake in Greece. He redirects the fabled shlep across the Red Sea to a now-dry lake in Egypt, noting the mistranslation of "Sea of Reeds" created the confusion. And he sneaks into an off-limit Egyptian military zone to scale a lonely outpost that he claims to be the original Mount Sinai. If that's not enough, he also treks to Greece to present a golden Mycenaean amulet that he claims is a depiction of the long-lost Ark of the Covenant.

It's all very compelling and in Jacobvici's full-throttle presentation (complete with a CGI-spectacular "virtual museum" and the occasional seal of on-camera approval by James Cameron), it all seems to make sense. Throughout the presentation, the filmmaker congratulates himself for gaining access to off-limit archeological sites and for daring to offer a new slant on the old tale.

And it all would work, except for the nagging fact that none of Jacobvici's theories have any backing by serious archeological or Biblical scholars. The rush of off-beat and tradition-challenging notions calls to mind the giddiness that Erich von Daniken used to bring to his spoutings about extra-terrestrials influencing ancient civilizations. It's quite fun to listen to as alternative history, and Jacobvici's ability to spin a tale is without question. But his lack of serious scholarly roots requires the genuine student of the subject to steal Clara Peller's thunder and ask: where's the beef?